Chapter 5 - His Affair Became His Alibi
There are humiliations so complete they become almost funny.
At 2:14 a.m. eighteen months earlier, while someone inside Vale Holdings used Dominic's executive credentials to upload a forged version of my signature, Dominic had been in a suite at the Langham in New York with Vanessa Quinn.
The hotel records proved it.
So did the restaurant receipt from midnight.
So did elevator security footage.
So did, after an hour of miserable silence, Dominic himself.
"It was the first time," he said.
We were still in the boardroom.
I stared out at the river.
"Do you expect that to make me feel better?"
"No."
"Good."
"I just want the timeline accurate."
I turned around.
"How corporate of you."
Pain crossed his face.
I did not soften.
He had earned the pain.
But the timeline mattered.
Because if Dominic had been with Vanessa in New York, and the document had been uploaded through his account in Chicago, someone either had remote access to his credentials or knew how to make it appear that way.
By four o'clock, the forensic team had confirmed the login originated from a device registered to the executive floor.
By five, they found that the security camera covering the corridor outside Dominic's office had gone offline for twenty-seven minutes that night.
By six, Vanessa Quinn's name was trending in Chicago.
Not because anyone knew about the forged document.
Because she had struck first.
A celebrity news site published photographs from the Meridian Gala under the headline:
ABANDONED WIFE ARRIVES WITH HUSBAND'S BILLIONAIRE INVESTOR HOURS AFTER SPLIT.
The article implied Gabriel and I had been secretly involved for years.
It mentioned his relationship with my father.
It quoted an anonymous "Vale executive" claiming I had used marital influence to secure a hidden ownership stake.
And it included one detail that made my blood run cold.
The exact amount of my father's original investment.
Four point two million dollars.
That number was not in any public filing.
"Vanessa," I said.
Mara nodded.
"Almost certainly."
Gabriel stood near the window, reading the article on his phone.
"She wants to make Evelyn look compromised before the audit results become public."
Dominic entered the conference room without knocking.
"I know."
I looked at him.
He held his phone in one hand.
"My communications team drafted a statement."
"Let me guess," I said. "No comment on personal matters."
"That's what they recommended."
"Of course."
He placed the phone on the table.
"I rejected it."
I blinked.
"Why?"
"Because the story is false."
"Which part?"
He met my eyes.
The room became uncomfortable.
"The part suggesting you were unfaithful. The part suggesting you manipulated your father into investing. The part suggesting you received anything you weren't legally entitled to."
Gabriel said nothing.
Dominic looked at him, then back at me.
"And the part implying our marriage ended because of Gabriel."
My throat tightened.
"You're going to tell the press it ended because of Vanessa?"
"I'm going to tell the truth."
"That you're having an affair with your vice president?"
He swallowed.
"Yes."
I stared at him.
Dominic had spent fifteen years building a reputation around control.
He hated public weakness.
He hated scandal.
He hated giving anyone information they could use against him.
"Why?"
He looked almost offended by the question.
"Because I won't let my failure become your accusation."
For one dangerous second, I remembered why I had loved him.
Then I remembered the last ten months.
"That doesn't fix anything."
"I know."
He picked up his phone.
"It isn't supposed to."
Twenty-three minutes later, Dominic Vale released the shortest statement of his career.
My marriage to Evelyn is ending because of decisions I made, including an inappropriate personal relationship with an employee of Vale Holdings. Any suggestion that Evelyn's relationship with Gabriel Cross caused our separation is false. Evelyn's business interests arise from a lawful investment made by her family before our marriage. I will not comment further while the company conducts an independent investigation.
The internet exploded.
Vanessa's story collapsed in under an hour.
But she was not finished.
At 7:40 p.m., the forensic team called Mara.
They had identified the device used to access Dominic's office eighteen months earlier.
It was a temporary laptop issued to the finance department.
Assigned to Leonard Shaw.
"We need to freeze his access," Mara said.
Gabriel was already calling the board chair.
Dominic looked at me.
"He sat at our dining table."
"I know."
"He knew your father."
"I know."
His voice became rough.
"He knew what that investment meant to us."
I almost corrected him.
To me.
But then I remembered the early years.
Dominic in our tiny apartment, reading spreadsheets on the floor because we didn't own a proper desk.
My father arguing with him for three hours before agreeing to invest.
Dominic shaking my father's hand afterward and saying, I won't waste her faith in me.
Maybe the investment had meant something to him once.
Maybe that was the tragedy.
At 8:03, Leonard's corporate access was disabled.
At 8:11, he sent a message to the board claiming the forensic process had been "captured by Cross Capital and Mrs. Vale for purposes of a hostile takeover."
At 8:19, Northstar withdrew its purchase offer.
At 8:26, Leonard stopped answering calls.
At 8:41, his assistant told security he had left the building carrying two archive boxes.
Gabriel cursed.
"What?" I asked.
"If he took physical files, he may be trying to destroy evidence."
Dominic grabbed his coat.
"Where would he go?"
Mara looked up from her laptop.
"His company car crossed the Kennedy Expressway toll point twenty minutes ago heading northwest."
Dominic's face changed.
"The Elk Grove records center."
"What's there?" I asked.
"Original financing files. Old board books. Legacy agreements. We moved most records digital, but the acquisition archives are still stored there."
My stomach dropped.
"The Hart documents?"
"Some originals, yes."
Gabriel was already moving.
"Call police and facility security. Nobody goes there alone."
Dominic looked at him.
"I wasn't planning to."
"Good."
I picked up my coat.
Both men turned.
"No," they said at the same time.
I stared at them.
"Excuse me?"
Dominic spoke first.
"Evelyn, if Leonard is involved—"
"Then the records he may be destroying concern me."
Gabriel shook his head.
"This isn't a board meeting."
"I know. In a board meeting, apparently I get a vote."
Neither man smiled.
Mara did.
Barely.
"She's not going to stay," she said. "So stop wasting time."
Before we left, Naomi Chen from the forensic team stopped me in the corridor and showed me three consulting payments. Money had moved from a Vale vendor to a small communications firm during the same month the forged consent appeared. The firm then paid a luxury apartment lease and a private travel account.
The beneficiary was hidden behind an LLC. The mailing address belonged to Vanessa.
"Corporate money?" I asked.
"Indirectly, perhaps. We can't call it that yet, but the timing is concerning."
Dominic read the figures over my shoulder. "I paid for none of that."
I looked at him. "You paid for dinners. Trips. Jewelry."
He did not deny it. "Not the apartment. Not this account."
Gabriel crossed his arms. "Then someone else may have been financing her access."
The implication settled over us. Dominic had believed himself the most sophisticated person in every room while people around him may have been underwriting the very affair that gave them access to him.
"I thought I was the one taking risks," he said quietly.
"You were," I replied. "You just weren't the only one calculating them."
We left in two cars with corporate security and notified police on the way.
Snow had begun falling over Chicago.
The roads shone black under streetlights.
At 9:17, we reached the records center.
The front gate was open.
The security booth was empty.
A side door stood ajar.
And smoke was coming from the loading bay.
"Stay in the car," Dominic ordered.
I looked at him.
"Stop ordering me."
Then a man stumbled out of the side entrance coughing.
It was the night security guard.
One of Gabriel's people ran toward him.
The guard shouted something I could not hear through the glass.
Then he pointed at the building.
At that exact moment, every light inside the records center went out.
Dominic reached for the car door.
Gabriel caught his arm.
"Police are thirty seconds out."
"If the sprinklers are down—"
"You're suspended CEO, not a firefighter."
Sirens approached.
I stared through the windshield at smoke curling into the snow.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
A woman's voice whispered, "He wasn't supposed to burn it."
I knew the voice.
Vanessa.
"Where are you?"
She was crying now.
Real crying.
"Evelyn, listen to me. Leonard has copies of everything. Northstar. The forged consent. The accounts. He said he'd scare the board, not destroy evidence."
"Why should I believe you?"
"Because I'm the one who gave him Dominic's password."
My blood went cold.
Dominic was staring at me.
Gabriel too.
"Why?" I whispered.
Vanessa sobbed.
May you like
"Because he told me we were going to own the company when Dominic fell."
Then the line went dead.
